The Lost Prince | Page 9

way of making hard and comfortless hours
easier to live through.
``Fine, big lad--for a foreigner,'' Marco heard a man say to his
companion as he passed them this morning. ``Looks like a Pole or a
Russian.''

It was this which had led his thoughts back to the story of the Lost
Prince. He knew that most of the people who looked at him and called
him a ``foreigner'' had not even heard of Samavia. Those who chanced
to recall its existence knew of it only as a small fierce country, so
placed upon the map that the larger countries which were its neighbors
felt they must control and keep it in order, and therefore made
incursions into it, and fought its people and each other for possession.
But it had not been always so. It was an old, old country, and hundreds
of years ago it had been as celebrated for its peaceful happiness and
wealth as for its beauty. It was often said that it was one of the most
beautiful places in the world. A favorite Samavian legend was that it
had been the site of the Garden of Eden. In those past centuries, its
people had been of such great stature, physical beauty, and strength,
that they had been like a race of noble giants. They were in those days a
pastoral people, whose rich crops and splendid flocks and herds were
the envy of less fertile countries. Among the shepherds and herdsmen
there were poets who sang their own songs when they piped among
their sheep upon the mountain sides and in the flower-thick valleys.
Their songs had been about patriotism and bravery, and faithfulness to
their chieftains and their country. The simple courtesy of the poorest
peasant was as stately as the manner of a noble. But that, as Loristan
had said with a tired smile, had been before they had had time to
outlive and forget the Garden of Eden. Five hundred years ago, there
had succeeded to the throne a king who was bad and weak. His father
had lived to be ninety years old, and his son had grown tired of waiting
in Samavia for his crown. He had gone out into the world, and visited
other countries and their courts. When he returned and became king, he
lived as no Samavian king had lived before. He was an extravagant,
vicious man of furious temper and bitter jealousies. He was jealous of
the larger courts and countries he had seen, and tried
to introduce their customs and their ambitions. He ended by
introducing their worst faults and vices. There arose political quarrels
and savage new factions. Money was squandered until poverty began
for the first time to stare the country in the face. The big Samavians,
after their first stupefaction, broke forth into furious rage. There were
mobs and riots, then bloody battles. Since it was the king who had

worked this wrong, they would have none of him. They would depose
him and make his son king in his place. It was at this part of the story
that Marco was always most deeply interested. The young prince was
totally unlike his father. He was a true royal Samavian. He was bigger
and stronger for his age than any man in the country, and he was as
handsome as a young Viking god. More than this, he had a lion's heart,
and before he was sixteen, the shepherds and herdsmen had already
begun to make songs about his young valor, and his kingly courtesy,
and generous kindness. Not only the shepherds and herdsmen sang
them, but the people in the streets. The king, his father, had always
been jealous of him, even when he was only a beautiful, stately child
whom the people roared with joy to see as he rode through the streets.
When he returned from his journeyings and found him a splendid youth,
he detested him. When the people began to clamor and demand that he
himself should abdicate, he became insane with rage, and committed
such cruelties that the people ran mad themselves. One day they
stormed the palace, killed and overpowered the guards, and, rushing
into the royal apartments, burst in upon the king as he shuddered green
with terror and fury in his private room. He was king no more, and
must leave the country, they vowed, as they closed round him with
bared weapons and shook them in his face. Where was the prince?
They must see him and tell him their ultimatum. It was he whom they
wanted for a king. They trusted him and would obey him. They began
to shout aloud his name, calling him in a sort of chant in unison,
``Prince Ivor--Prince Ivor--Prince Ivor!'' But no answer came. The
people